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Participants:

This time, they shout less and speak more, of the people Ghost used to know rather than the ones left in his acquaintance now.

Date

June 4, 2009

Between

Tell me about Flint in your future.

Flint Deckard gets money from being famous. He quits poisoning his liver and selling guns to go back to school, but he still drinks and carries concealed. He becomes a head doctor, to save people who need saving from themselves— a broad category that includes himself, you, Bijou Baxter, and Abigail when she is widowed. He discovers he has a son who is awesome, and keeps his refrigerator stocked with two types of peanut butter. By 2019, he can see anything, man. Fucking anything. I think he can even see God, which explains why he remains skeptical. Flint hones his ability. By measuring the palpitating tells of heart and dilations of the sympathetic nervous system, he can tell apart a white lie from any other kind, and separate sociopaths from the bell curve of sane. He marries Abigail, mocks her children, and it won't be long before they have a few of their own. By then, Abby will have stopped wearing black for me. They will never divorce!

You're silly. And… and— you're dead?

It is mathematical, how often those two traits coincide.

Somehow, Flint can't tell you're a sociopath.

No answer.

Why do you think in English now?

Sometimes I think in Hebrew.

Why don't you think in Italian anymore?

I get tired of hearing Lucrezia's little phrases inside my head. Mom was the one who encouraged your talent for languages and to go abroad; Aunt Lucrezia always insisted Sicily was inhered in you, and that is why you talk in this ridiculous chocolate sprinkled way you do. After two years, I get tired of phrasing up little stories for her that she never came back to hear. After three, I get tired of waiting. I get tired very easily; it happens when you're old.

I don't believe that.

That I tire easily?

That you feel old. That's kind of like not feeling idiotic anymore.

Bitch.

Who else is there? What happens to everybody?

There are some Ferrymen in the Columbia 14. Grace and Simon are two of them. Felix is with Leland and he prospers, welcomes you back to New York City every year with a largesse of two beer rounds. Tamara is lucid and she's with Colette; they're still happy too, if Colette lives. Colette's taste for intrigue and mystery solving extends to professional areas, taking her to detective work. She's really good. Gillian and Peter have a son, and Pete starts showing up with his wedding band still on for our annual mourning binges after about six years. Get this: you guys are actually friends by then. Elisabeth is raising Norton's child alone. You two made a pact to tell each other everything. Novelly, this time, for that, you are almost faithful. Harry Bianco is the President, which is kind of hilarious— you could be dating the President's kid but you're busy garrotting Palestinians instead. Sometimes you see him on CNN: he's the most handsome misery you've ever laid eyes on. He's engaged to Bijou, who you'll learn about. Fulk has this whole drama with Winters, and there is sex in it but I am pretty sure it is cunninglus. He routinely visits his orphanage chain around the world while teleconferencing through his personal communications satellite and shoed in Cavalli. Cat's saving the children in a different way: money toward intellectual cultivation instead of brochures of children fat off animal crackers. The one who can never forget is better at moving on than the rest of us. Victor Childs and Monica Dawson are married, divorce, and thinking about getting back together again. Cardinal disappears. John Logan is in prison and, fortuitously for him, there is a cure for AIDS but none for sociopathy. Magnes caves under the pressure of estrangement from Abby, befriends Gabriel, who trains him to turn cop and he angrily stops shaving. I think — my most extravagant theory thus far — that he may secretly be a Deckard, too. What do you think?

What the fuck happened to you, man?

Well. You bury your friends, allow Deckard and Abigail to learn you how to smile again. You stay in New York to help Hana hunt Humanis First!, and then you go to Israel to help Hana kill terrorists there. Time passes. You figure out that the person who makes you laugh, the one you can talk to, and the one who turns you on don't have to be three different people, but you stop making new friends. You have a son you don't know about with Delilah, and almost a daughter with Eve. Time passes. Even though you haven't been sailing for eight years, you still insist on only spending money on things built for sea air. Cold doesn't bother you, after torture in Herzliyya. Eventually, you run out of enemies, and start to kill off your friends. Maybe in another ten years, you would have grown young again, found somebody, written in book, maybe if you were lucky and took after your mother's side, but even now you are already pretty sure that you don't. After awhile, you stop thinking about who you would spare, and more importantly, you don't bother wondering who would spare you. When Jesse comes back, it's either too late or too early.

Yes, the little one says, but what the fuck happened to you?

You won't have to know. I won't let it happen.

Delilah is like fifteen years old. And you're a worthless deadbeat dad. What's happening with Hana? How can this be if you're with Hana?

I don't remember very well. By 2019, there's a lot of quiet between you two. Sometimes, too much, though you always come around before the momentum shorts out to silence. I don't know exactly what happened. It was eight years of becoming, you know. Hana is like you. Well, the other way around.

That isn't how it's supposed to go. It's supposed to go the other way around.

Well, at least this way we're both still alive, Ghost answers, without seeming especially convinced.

I seriously doubt that. I am a pretty good liar. Not a half bad actor, either, although playing you is pretty easy: you just overact

We're kind of sharing a brain. There isn't that much room; contrary to commonplace insult, the walls are pretty thin.

Seriously? You can?

Ye— yes. I think sometimes your dreams bleed through too— I get stuck in them or something, I don't know. I'm not always awake when you are and playing catch-up is a bitch. Why? Why, you can't read me?

Suspicious, maybe even disconcerted, Ghost answers nothing for a few minutes. When he eventually does, it is faintly accusatory: I don't have dreams anymore.

Sad bastard, aren't you? One more question.

Shoot.

What is this place? This is Brooklyn, isn't it? Who are you setting it up for?